Targeted Marketing: When and Where

Talking about targeted marketing, you cannot ignore the importance of right time and right place to market your product.

Simply putting, it might not be that fruitful to market your personal tax management software in the month of May, or outdoors water sports resort when the temperature is sub-zero. Similarly, it might be more effective if you advertise a digital camera next to search results when someone is shopping for digital camera, rather than in a news feed where chances are the user will consider it as an obstruction.

Seasonal dimension plays a significant role in spotting the right time to market your product. When trying to figure out the right time for marketing, the important thing to understand is that it is very hard to make the customers go out of their way and consider your product, but you can make your product play a role in their thought process if they are already thinking along the same lines. This is equally true when you are trying to figure out the right place. The marketing message should blend in with something that holds importance for the customers. This will make them notice it and think about it.

Internet advertising is gaining traction because of its growing effectiveness in nailing down the right place and the right time. Search engines do a phenomenal job placing ads right next to the results for the product search when a person is showing genuine interest in a product. Then there is behavioral relevance in online advertising. Think of it as someone something smart enough travelling with you while you are shopping in a mall and taking notes on what you are planning to buy. Now when you are sitting idle, that something intelligently shows you advertisements of products you were shopping for sometime back. That is pretty much what technology enables online in order to do effective marketing using behavioral characteristics of an individual.

In a world where the likes of TiVo and satellite radio are gaining prominence, the importance of nailing down the right place and the right time to gain attention of your target audience is more than ever before. Tactics like subtle branding and community engagements can be more effective as compared to traditional ways of marketing. This brings us to the last pillar: “how”.